Choices
by readerbean
Summary: A different epilogue of sorts... Katniss questions which path to choose.


Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Hunger Games books

I have officially become addicted! This is only my second ever fanfiction but I can't stop reading and writing! Plus I love the Gale and Katniss pairing so I wrote about it! Reviews please!

Peeta stood in front of me, beaten. The world we once knew was cluttered at our feet in ashes. We had won the war, but lost too many battles for me to feel at all at ease. I lost the biggest battle of all. I lost my sister. It was for her that all this happened. The very first time I stepped out of district twelve was only in hopes of protecting her. It was my fault she died. Peeta sensed my misery and attempted to dissolve my discomfort, and his unhappiness as well.

"You love me, real or not real." He closed the gap between us and he spoke the words so softly; they were only audible to me. How I answered this question was the choice of one life or another. Time stood still as I considered just how to go about this, I did love Peeta. He calmed me, and he helped keep my flaming passion and anger in check. In the first games he fell in love with me, even though I was destined to die. I loved him, but given the recent events, I wasn't thinking clearly enough to tell weather I was _in_ love with him. Guilt, shame, overwhelming sadness, and strangely, mild satisfaction clouded my thoughts. Then there was Gale. My best friend… my only friend. But the bomb… My thoughts trailed off and I could only breath. I could barely breath. If I dared to go back to that place, the darkest place in my mind; the last time I saw Prim. I think back to my first games, to the Tracker Jackers. Everything I had seen, the horrors I endured, and my worst nightmare had come to fruition. I had lost everything but the faint chance to be loved and to love again. The chance came to me as Peeta's question. _You love me, real or not real._ The sound echoed throughout my hollow existence and dared me to answer.

"I…I…" I wanted to speak, I wanted the words to pour out of my mouth in a waterfall of emotions; I wanted to tell him how I felt and how I didn't. But I couldn't. I swallowed my sentence and they suffocated me. I could see his face fall in slow motion, and all his hopes shattered by his feet. I didn't explain myself, but my lack of words did that for me. He backed away and dropped his head; I froze and watched his heart break.

"It's okay Katniss, I just thought, I believed that you loved me back." I couldn't let him to leave.

"Peeta, wait. The thing is, I do love you, I depend on you but we can't be together. You're like a brother to me, and I'm going to need that after all that happened so I want you to come with me back to district 12. I want you to be my confidant and my friend, but I need to know you can handle it, because honestly Peeta, I'm in love with Gale." Now the words did come flowing, perhaps not as articulately as I would have liked, but I was beginning to think it was just another of my idiosyncrasies.

"Katniss…that's a lot to take in, I don't want to disappoint you but I think that would be to painful for me, at least for now. I don't want to think that I'm abandoning you because I'm not. I need some time. I'll always love you Katniss Everdeen." And with that, he turned and exited my life. It would be a while since I saw him again and our friendship was re-kindled, but I would see him again.

. . .

Gale and I stared out the window, hands intertwined. I turned my attention to his silhouette. He was scared and beaten, there were parts of him, physically and emotionally that would never be the same, but he was perfect. I followed his gaze to the front of our home in Victor's Village. He was staring at the grass, a green unknown to our eyes until recently. It was beautiful but broken. There was so many lives lost and suffering endured where there was now flowers. I was still undecided on weather it was beautiful for bringing something wonderful from such bleakness, or if it was offensive for making light of the place where I lost my first reality.

"What?" Gale turned to me and a faint smile crept onto his lips when he caught me staring. That was Gale, simple and to the point, and could even be conceived as uncharismatic to those who don't know him. That was not the case with me. I knew him better then anyone and I could see the insecurities and conflicting confidence behind that one word. I could sense his anxiousness and his contended demeanor behind his barley-there-smile.

"Everything." I too answered in one simple word but I knew that he understood. He could feel all the feelings hidden behind my grin. He knew that I meant to say that he made me happy, happier then I've ever been in my life. That even though his passion was also flaming, we only bonded together to create fireworks. Most importantly, he knew, even though I couldn't say it, even though I couldn't say any of it, he knew that I forgave him. I leaned into his shoulder and he bent down kissed the top of my head. We fell asleep there that night, staring out the window, at each other and speaking without words. I decided then that the grass and the flowers, and the unfamiliar blue sky was beautiful. Panem would take a very long time to recover from the damage done and the wars won, but Gale and I along with our blue sky were a part of that change. A change for the better.


End file.
